Latest Projects

Researching: Art of Governance

A long-term research project to document, evaluate, organize, and make more accessible news, ideas, theories, and best practices related to better understanding how we can create more sustainable, equitable and effective governance structures.

Full-time: Borough Administrator in Leonia, New Jersey

CAO/COO to a $13 million, 60-staff municipality in Bergen County, New Jersey. Through strategic management of the Borough's facilities, infrastructure, departments, budget, and personnel we are reducing costs of improving quality of public services, leveraging new technology, improving sustainability practices, providing engagement/communication platforms, and strategically planing for a more innovative future of public service delivery.

Teaching: Strategic Management and Decision Making

At Seton Hall University, we're tackling some of the most challenging problems presented to up and coming public managers, and preparing students to be more creative, strategic, intentional in the way they build their careers and design effective public programs.

Past Projects

Progress in South Orange, New Jersey

While mayor (From 2011-2015), South Orange saw four years of the lowest tax increases in over fifteen, hundreds of millions of dollars in investment, especially in the downtown, three years of debt reduction, four years of crime reduction, increased commitment to sustainability, better use of technology and more support for the arts. Most important, all done with a civic space now compromised of constructive, collaborative leadership and an informed, engaged public actively involved in shaping the future of the community.

Inspiring and supporting a new generation of leaders

With Rethink Leadership, we helped connect young elected officials from around the country to eachother. Figuring out what exists that motivates and demotivates people from entering our civic space is critical to understanding how best to make running for office more accessible to a wider range of Americans.

I also serve on the advisory board of New Leader's Council New Jersey, am a James Madison Fellow at the Millennial Action Project and serve on Sustainable Jersey's Civic Engagement Task Force.

Empowering innovation through Veracity Media

I founded Veracity Media to help support those trying to make the world and their communities a better place. In only a couple short years, we grew our scrappy firm to a major player in the political digital arena.
Through our work, we helped fight for access to affordable higher education, better veteran benefits, more women in elected office, more independents in our government and much more.

I left Veracity in 2015, but I highly recommend checking out what they're up to: veracitymedia.com to learn more.

Building confidence and teaching skills at YMCA

While applying for and evaluating local government employment options in the fall of 2017, I got the unique opportunity to work at one of my favorite places - YMCA Fairview Lake. I attended the camp in my younger years, and got to come back and teach young people outdoor skills, environmental education, and help them build their confidence as potential future leaders.

Creating new pathways for better American civic leadership

Consulted as the Program Director for Run for America to research, iterate and implement a new, nationwide, cross-partisan program to help inspire, provide support for and ultimately make more accessible running for office at all levels of government and integrating a greater level of long-term civic impact into their lives. The program “graduated” thirteen individuals in its first run, and its methodology is still being used developed and integrated into other leadership development processes.

Bringing practical public management lessons to the classroom

At Seton Hall University, we're expanding the scope of experimenting with new ways that an MPA education can prepare students not just for jobs in the public sector, but to be critical stewards of the public sector.

Training, learning, and volunteering in Emergency Medical Services

From learning simply what to do if you see someone collapse in public, to triaging and managing Mass-Casualty Incidents and working in small teams in ultra-high pressure environments when lives are on the line, to seeing the consequences of our country's deficient homeless and veteran care, training, learning and logging nearly 5,000 volunteer hours with the South Orange Rescue Squad was one of the most valuable and memorable experiences possible.

Self-designed East Africa governance study

After years of studying governance environments at home, I designed a two-month study abroad, taking me back to East Africa, were I lived, studied, worked, and traveled with organizations and individuals in Rwanda and Uganda. This time included interviewing, discussing, and evaluating topics related to governance, economic development, education, media, elections, and organizational development.

Critical Incident management in South Orange

In addition to the statutory responsibility as the municipality's mayor, I was also the OEM Director in South Orange, which put me in the middle of our responses to storms such as Hurricanes Irene and Sandy. Seeing municipal operations, coordinating operations and communications, supporting community members, and seeing first-hand the major deficiencies in regional, state, and federal responses as well as our utility infrastructure was a particularly insightful and formative set of experiences.